Boom Time For Babies A Victory For Soviet Policy

December 26, 1987|By New York Times News Service.

MOSCOW — It was almost noon feeding time when the chief doctor, Yevgeny A. Volpin, burst into a dormitory at Moscow Maternity House No. 27.

``Our beautiful young mothers!`` he announced, beaming at the five women hastily closing their hospital gowns. ``How many does this make for you? Two? And you, my lovely? Also two? Good for you! Just like the statistics!``

The bemused mothers at this north Moscow maternity ward are part of a reversal with potentially important political and economic consequences: Women from the Russian majority in the Soviet Union are having more babies.

Despite cramped and often overcrowded apartments, dire shortages of such basics as baby clothes, the high divorce rate for Russians and the fact that most women work full-time jobs and bear the brunt of food lines and household chores, the statistics show that Russian women increasingly decide on families of two or three children rather than one or two.

Demographers here and in the West say the trend is a victory for a strong policy that offers mothers financial incentives to have children, extended leave, improved maternity care and a dose of pro-baby propaganda.

``The policies have been remarkably successful,`` said Murray Feshbach of Georgetown University, a specialist in Soviet population and health. ``You have to ask how long it will last if they don`t solve the housing problem and get better medical care, but they have the beginning of a major improvement.`` Western population experts long ago calculated that without a higher birth rate, the Soviet Union would have trouble finding enough workers to staff its factories and new conscripts for its army.

Moreover, while the birth rate among Russians and other European ethnic groups has languished, the Asian minorities in Soviet Central Asia have been prolific.

This has already led to dislocations in the economy that result when people are born in one place and factories are located in another.

The high birth rates of ethnic minorities also causes concern about language and cultural gaps, especially in the military, and about the potential allure of Islamic fundamentalism.

Beginning with a 1981 decree, the government has gradually increased the inducements for larger families.

Olga Marozova, interviewed while she waited for an ultrasound examination at the maternity clinic here, is expecting her second child in January.

She will remain away from her job as an office worker until the baby is a year old, with a monthly stipend of 35 rubles, about a fifth of her normal wage.

Marozova was paid a bonus of 50 rubles, about $80, for her first child, and will get 100 rubles for the second. The average wage is about 200 rubles a month.

The benefits are hardly lavish, but Marozova said that together with the Soviet system of free medical care and the prospect of a new apartment in five years or so, it was enough to convince her and her husband that they could afford a bigger family.

Since the first measures to encourage births were introduced in the early 1980s, the birth rate has turned upward and begun to increase at a slightly faster rate, according to official data.

Last year 19.9 babies were born for every 1,000 people in the Soviet Union, up from 17 a decade ago. (The comparable United states figure is 15.5, but more American babies survive because of superior medical care.)

The rate of population increase is rising in 11 of 15 Soviet republics, including Russia, according to the most recent official data.

The birth trends are not enough to satisfy demographers. Mikhail S. Bedny, a prominent Soviet specialist in medical demographics, said the national average of 1.94 births a couple still falls short of what

demographers call the ``replacement rate`` needed to assure a stable population, about 2.5 births a family.

In addition, the rising Russian birth rate is still far outstripped by the rates in Soviet Central Asia.

Soviet experts concede that by the year 2000 Russians, now 51.5 percent of the population, will become a 49 percent minority in the nation commonly called Russia.

But the upturn in the Russian birth rate has strengthened the conviction of Soviet policymakers that they are on the right course.

A new round of inducements is to be introduced in the new year, including an additional six months of partly paid maternity leave and legislation creating part-time jobs for mothers.

Bedny said other factors behind the increase include a slight decline in abortion. Abortion still is the most common form of birth control here, with 10 operations not uncommon for a Russian woman.

Soviet demographers say they continue to be alarmed at the high rate of infant mortality, despite a steady improvement. Statistics for 1986 show that 25.4 Soviet babies die for every 1,000 live births, compared with 10.4 in the United States.